Chelsea teen dies after stabbing to heart

Monday, November 1, 2010 -- Anonymous (not verified)

Sections:

Local Coverage

Monday, November 1, 2010

Author(s):

Laurel J. Sweet

A 16-year-old boy who friends and family said recently moved back to Chelsea from Miami to be with his mother was found fatally stabbed through the heart on her Grove Street front porch yesterday morning.

“He had no chance, unfortunately,” said Chelsea police Capt. Keith E. Houghton, who identified the teen as Cesar Umana.

Police responding shortly before 1:30 a.m. to a 911 call made from a cell phone regarding a commotion by youth around a car found Umana unconscious in a blood-stained pink Victorian chair, being comforted by a concerned neighbor.

“That’s where they found him,” Houghton said. “Our investigators are trying to find out if it happened there or he was trying to find his way home. We’re still piecing it together. What our detectives are doing now are tracking his last 24 hours.”

Houghton said Umana was taken by ambulance to Whidden Hospital in Everett but died shortly afterward.

He said that at some point, Umana attended Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational School in Wakefield, but it was unclear yesterday if he was still a student there.

Cathy Bryant, a dean of students at the school, said Umana’s name was not immediately familiar to her.

The murder weapon has not been recovered, Houghton said.

Friends and loved ones held each other and wept as they stared blankly at the blood spatter on the cement stairs in front of the beige triple-decker at 60 Grove St. near Chelsea City Hall.

Umana’s cousin Ana Hernandez said he was born in El Salvador and had one brother. She said he left Miami to be with his mother, who she said “is doing all right. She’s sad.”

A friend, Saul Hernandez, said Umana moved to Miami “because there’s too many problems here. You can see it in the faces. Everybody can’t believe it.”